11-year headmaster of the Peddie School to step down next year

HIGHTSTOWN — John Green will step down as head of the Peddie School at the end of the next academic year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he will say adieu to teaching.

Green, 54, head of school at Peddie since September 2001, still has a decision to make about his future, but it likely will take him full circle back to a teaching position or some other role in the world of prep schools.

At Peddie, he leaves an array of projects and accomplishments. During his term, the Hightstown-based day and boarding school has spent millions of dollars on bricks and mortar to make sure the school remains in the top echelon of prep schools.

When he leaves Peddie at the end of the 2012-13 academic year, he will have served 12 years, about twice as long as the average stay by a headmaster at a private secondary school. When he told his faculty of his decision to leave, Green said he had served long enough and it was time for someone else to lead the school of approximately 550 students.

“I feel proud and honored to have served my favorite school for the past 11 years,” Green said. “It is now time to pass the opportunity of leading Peddie to others.”

“At the core of what you do are the relationships you have established over 30 years. And for me that was the privilege of a lifetime that not everyone gets to have,” Green said.

Green has worked with students in many roles since he left St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., decades ago. He has been a dean of faculty, chairman of a history department, a director of college counseling and a director of admissions.

He hears from former students — sometimes years after they have graduated.

“They get back to you in different ways. Sometimes it is a wedding invitation, sometimes it is an invitation to speak at their place of work, or it is finding the child of a former student in your classrooms and teaching a child of one of my former students,” said Green.

He recalled once driving a van with students and coming to a toll booth. In paying his toll some of the quarters missed the collection basket and landed under the van.

“There was no attendant there. With no one looking I could have driven off but I didn’t,” Green said. “Ten or 12 years later a student who had been in the van wrote to tell me that he had recently seen a judge park illegally in a reserved handicapped spot because there was no one around to stop him. The student said the incident prompted him to think about the time I crawled under the van to do the right thing even though no one was looking.

“You can’t always expect to hear from former students about such an event, but when you do it is a bonus and it encourages you,” said Green. “As educators we have to believe we are part of a process that results in our students being contributing citizens.”